The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s

Part Two: #150-101

Welcome to the second day of Pitchfork's week-long countdown of the 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s. Today we track up to #101, reserving coverage of the top 100 for the latter half of the week, before finally revealing the 20 best this Friday.

150. Bob Dylan: "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding" (Bob Dylan) 1965 Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A) Available on Bringing It All Back Home

In many respects, "It's Alright, Ma" was Dylan's last word on overt protest music, and he channeled this comprehensive social diatribe with such otherworldly fury that it seemed to awe even himself. "I don't know how I got to write those songs," he told Ed Bradley in a 2004 "60 Minutes" interview. "Try and sit down and write something like that." --Matthew Murphy

Prozac on wax-- one of the simplest, most joyous soul-shouting dance numbers of the decade, built on the only chords that matter. The Drells send their major sevenths strutting and scratching back and forth like they know they've found the perfect groove, and the whole thing just beams; you'd be hard pressed to find someone who can hear it without smiling back. --Nitsuh Abebe

It may clock in at 17 minutes, but "Sister Ray" is rock 'n' roll debased to it purest, most puerile form: blow jobs, smack, and a ceaseless riff that sounds like "96 Tears" getting cooked in a spoon. Some 26 years later, Jon Spencer would claim, "My father was Sister Ray!" He's just one of a million garage-rock deviants with a claim to child support. --Stuart Berman

147. Nina Simone: "Sinnerman" (Traditional) 1964 Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A) Available on The Best of Nina Simone

It's the end of the world and whoever sings this spiritual is trying to find a way out. Simone, raised in church, understands the scriptural underpinnings and sounds like she's riding her piano into town with a column of flame trailing 10 feet behind her. "Urgent" doesn't begin to describe it. --Mark Richardson

Where Steve Reich's 1974 modern classical piece "Music for 18 Musicians" throws up a wall of sound that even a packing Phil Spector would have trouble penetrating, Terry Riley's "In C" hangs like a beaded curtain. Here, minimalism isn't some totalizing force but a loose scrim dividing sound from silence, music from chaos, and chance from design, as the players attack cell-based arrangements like tipsy bingo players throwing chips to the wind. --Philip Sherburne

Listening to Tammy Wynette's hit song now, it's tough to decide who's being insulted more-- the wife who should forgive her philandering husband, or the husband who, being "just a man," apparently can't keep his libido in check. Regardless, the track's hallmarks-- swinging rhythm, teary steel guitar, and aching vocals-- are definitive, making it one of the most popular and best-loved songs country music has yet produced. --Cory D. Byrom

Our "Law & Order"-corroded minds can all-too-easily guess what the singer and Billie Joe tossed off the bridge that night, but this Southern Gothic story-song is still a creeping horror, for the way Gentry teases out each character's reactions to a tragedy-- and for the dread that sinks in with every revelation. --Chris Dahlen

With his trembling baritone croon and God's string section by his side, Scott Walker skillfully straddles the line between true pathos and nauseating bathos. With the weight he imparts to lyrics that are both clumsy scraps of poesy and poignant images ("She's a haunted house/ And her windows are broken"), it doesn't matter if the song is about an aging prostitute or his favorite soup spoon-- he sings this sad tale as if it's escaping upon his very last breath. --David Raposa

This song, given a bit more than its fair share of exposure via high school dances and movie previews, is nevertheless a pristine example of how far a great melody and chord progression will take you. It doesn't matter that it's a Bach rip, or that nobody really knows what Gary Brooker is singing about. --Dominique Leone

The four-bar intro, the ponying piano rhythms, a young Diana Ross' naifish vocals, the sugary vocal callbacks, the key change; simple economy of songwriting was one of Motown's defining characteristics, but few tracks from the label's golden era came as perfectly packaged as this one. --Mark Pytlik